Evening guys! I'm normally a lurker but desperation has made me come out of the shadows

Tomorrow I'm going to be getting the last bits for a gaming machine and I'll be swapping my Xeon + mITX out of the P280 it's in now into...something. I'd really like to put it into an ISK300 but I'm not completely convinced that the ISK300 and two 80mm fans will keep it cool.

There's a few threads floating around with mentions of i7's in them but I've not managed to find corrosponding posts about temps etc. (although at least one member has an i7 and ISK300 running as an HTPC in their specs list IIRC).

I'm only using the integrated graphics and it's pretty much a workhorse machine, no graphics or gaming. Will this work or am I crazy?

Hey, I saw this yesterday and I meant to respond but got sidetracked. I built a PC for my wife last year with the ISK-300. It has an AMD A8-3850, a 100W TDP CPU, and the ISK-300 does fine with it. I replaced the single Antec 80mm side fan with two Cooler Master Blade Masters since I wanted PWM fans and the stock fan is Antec's 3-speed fan. The resulting system is pretty quiet at idle (though not silent by this site's standards) but with all four cores plus the GPU loaded it generates quite a bit of heat and the fans ramp up pretty high. Fortunately with my wife's usage patterns it rarely gets pushed too hard.

This setup is probably about as far as I would want to go with this little case in terms of both power draw and thermal dissipation. I know you asked specifically about an i7, but I figure a recent i7 is going to be more efficient than the A8 I'm using so I think you should be fine. My biggest challenge was finding a quiet low-profile CPU cooler that would fit. I ended up using a Scythe Shuriken and modified the power cable where it enters the case to gain a little room.

The Xeon I'm using is a 95W TDP part so the results should be fairly similar to yours. I'm glad to get some feedback because even though I've installed the parts, I haven't stress tested it yet and confirmation that it won't turn into a ball of molten metal is a good thing when it is pushed ^_^

I've got two new fans coming and I've actually hot glued some fine mesh flyscreen to the intake vent to keep dust down a bit. Hopefully this is enough to keep things cool.

There's a slight hitch. I've pulled out the 150W PS and put in an 80W PicoPSU but the cables actually extend into one of the fan slots. I'll have to either resolder the cables or figure something else out.

Oh excellent! I have a Shuriken as well and have been wondering if it would fit. I'm definitely giving that a try!

My Xeon E3-1235 with 2x4GB RAM, P8B WS board (of course you will use a ITX board) and one SSD pulled 22W at idle and 106W at full CPU load (sorry, can't do the GPU load on the Linux). So 80W pico won't cut it, the original 150W PSU would be fine.

My Xeon E3-1235 with 2x4GB RAM, P8B WS board (of course you will use a ITX board) and one SSD pulled 22W at idle and 106W at full CPU load (sorry, can't do the GPU load on the Linux). So 80W pico won't cut it, the original 150W PSU would be fine.

This is very close to my specs. I might still give it a go with the PicoPSU, more out of curiosity than anything, and measure it's power draw at full load. But I expect that I'll end up having to put the Antec PS back in. Or upgrade to a higher watt Pico.

Edit 1: My Scythe Shuriken definitely does not fit. I must have a different version/model.

Edit 2: There's a heap of room in this case when you remove the front panel connectors (USB etc.) and don't have to deal with the cables. The Antec PSU is back in but I think I'll wait till the new fans arrive till I do much else. I had to take the side fan out to remove the Shuriken and don't really feel like removing the motherboard to put it back in when I'll just have to do it all over again soon. I also had to cut off the power cable connector clip, on the Intel board I'm using the power connector is right up against the fans.

All the picoPSU does really is DC-DC conversions from 12v down to 5v, 3.3v etc. Since a modern system draws most on the 12v rail and the picoPSU essentially just passes through from the brick, what matters most is what the brick can deliver. I usually let the brick feed the ATX 4pin-connector directly. A picoPSU 90-XLP with a Dell DA-2 powers the "gaming" system in my sig.So a beefier picoPSU is only necessary if you want to avoid soldering, assuming your brick can power the system.

The brick is 120W. When I get the fans, since I'll have to pull it all apart again anyway, I'll plug the Pico back in and try it out. I'm either going to need to solder or get an extender for the power connecter and hang it off that. Soldering shouldn't be too hard and all I should need to do it get one set of wires coming out of the opposite side and then remove the pin connector and solder the bare wires to the PCB.

Edit 1: My Scythe Shuriken definitely does not fit. I must have a different version/model.

Hmm. Mine is a Rev.B SCSK-1100. I guess it's also possible that the socket location is different on your board (I'm using an Asrock A75M-ITX) and you're running into interference with something where it cleared in my system.

Hmm. Mine is a Rev.B SCSK-1100. I guess it's also possible that the socket location is different on your board (I'm using an Asrock A75M-ITX) and you're running into interference with something where it cleared in my system.

That's probably exactly what the problem is. As much as I like these Intel boards, the placement of a few things isn't the best (SATA and power connectors etc.).

All the picoPSU does really is DC-DC conversions from 12v down to 5v, 3.3v etc. Since a modern system draws most on the 12v rail and the picoPSU essentially just passes through from the brick, what matters most is what the brick can deliver. I usually let the brick feed the ATX 4pin-connector directly. A picoPSU 90-XLP with a Dell DA-2 powers the "gaming" system in my sig.So a beefier picoPSU is only necessary if you want to avoid soldering, assuming your brick can power the system.

How much headroom do you think you have in that gaming rig?

My system is very similar except it uses a DZ75ML-45K motherboard and an HD7790 (soon).

It will draw more power but I think it will be all 12v through the PCIe 12v connector, so I'm thinking a 160 watt picopsu with a brick like that DA-2 might actually work.

I've just finished re-re-re-wiring the ISK300. It's taken longer than I had hoped to get things up an running because the fans only arrived a few days ago.

First, I've ended up using the stock Antec PS over the PicoPSU. There's a few reasons for this and it's partly to do with the motherboard and connector placement.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've had to cut the PS connector clip off to actually get it into the port. This is because the connector is otherwise blocked by the fan holder, regardless of whether there's actually a fan in there or not.

Having the PicoPSU power cables coming out at right angles to the PCB also affect the fan as it would be a pain to make 100% sure that they don't slip between the fan blades.

Now, I came up with a partial solution to this but it leads to another problem. If I used an ATX extender cable to connect the Pico, it solves the second problem but end up being a massive pain because because it still needs to be close enough to the back of the case for the brick connector to attach.

Next, having attempted cabling both PSs, I came to the conclusion that it was easier for me to keep things neat and out of the way with the Antec PS. I will admit, though, that part of this is because I'm using a sheathed ATX extender cable that is really hard to route properly in this case. If it were unsheathed (or if I could be bothered to cut the sheathing off each wire) it would probably be easier.

The Nexus Basic fans are pretty good. For the price, I get why they're the default recommended fan here. I actually can't hear them at all unless I put my ear up to the case but this is more to do with the clear Nexus fans in my server that drown out all other sound in the room.

My only concern is that the Antec runs warm on idle so I'm going to run a stress test and make sure the fans can handle the combined heat from the CPU and the PS.

I'll post some pics later tonight or tomorrow. I haven't taken them off the camera yet.

I guess the moral of this story is that things are made more difficult when the ports you need are poorly placed. The motherboard, btw, is an Intel S1200KPR.

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